Conventionally mass transit vehicles and particularly city buses are manufactured from a welded steel frame defining a floor frame, side wall frame and roof bows which is then clad using sheet cladding material riveted, glued or otherwise fixed to the frame. Insulation material is inserted between the frame members inside the exterior cladding and outside of the interior cladding.
The flooring is conventionally applied from individual simple rectangular panels which are arranged to span across the floor frame and fastened to the floor frame by conventional fasteners. The panels are arranged with butting side edges edge to edge along the vehicle. The floor panels are often fabricated from plywood but however composite materials are also sometimes used including flooring panels manufactured from fibre reinforced plastics material. One particular panel is manufactured from top and bottom sheets of a fibrous mat applied on top and bottom surfaces of a honeycomb material manufactured from phenolic resin impregnated paper with a thermosetting foam introduced into the honeycomb cores.
However the panels are formed, they are conventionally rectangular and arranged edge to edge and cut to shape and to size to complete the necessary flooring overlay.
It is also proposed to manufacture bus structures from fibre reinforced composite plastics material so that the side walls, roof structure and floor are each formed separately from such composite materials and are attached together to form the complete bus structure without the necessity for an additional frame supporting the structure.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,375,249 (Stanton) issued Apr. 23, 2002 discloses a public transit vehicle which has a vehicle body having a roof defining an interior ceiling surface, two side walls each extending longitudinally of the vehicle including an upper side wall portion connecting to the roof and a row of windows underneath the upper portion, a central aisle and two rows of seats each on a respective side of the aisle and along the side wall at the windows. The roof and floor are formed from a welded frame structure over which is applied a molded panel formed in single panel structure and bonded to the frame structure. The panel is formed by molding a sandwich using a thermosetting resin through top and bottom fiber reinforced sheets and a honeycomb layer of resin impregnated paper and foam between the sheets. The floor panel is shaped so that its thickness varies and its top and bottom surfaces deviate from an otherwise planar structure to incline downwardly at a door way and to incline upwardly to clear structural elements.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,006,321 (Lusk) issued Nov. 29, 2011 discloses a structural shear panel for forming a floor panel for formed by a composite of top and bottom sheets and a core with a vacuum infused resin. The panel is mainly planar and terminates at its side edges at a portion which lies in a common plane and portions are provided which are deformed out of the generally planar shape to form depending or elevated sections. The structure is formed by resin infusion into the sheets and core on a generally flat plate defining the planar panel portion with removable sections to define the depending and elevated sections. Edge pieces are attached to the plate to define the edges of the panel.